WASHINGTON — Ratcheting up the pressure on President Bashar Assad of Syria, the United States will keep American warplanes and anti-missile batteries in Jordan, officials said Saturday.

The decision, which came at the request of Jordan, means that a detachment of American F-16 warplanes as well as Patriot missile-defense systems would remain in Jordan after a military exercise concludes next week. The move follows President Barack Obama’s decision last week to send arms to Syrian rebels and comes as efforts are being made on multiple fronts on Saturday to increase the pressure on the regime.

In Cairo, President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt announced that he was severing relations with the Syrian government and withdrawing the Egyptian ambassador.

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry renewed his efforts to persuade Iraq to curtail Iranian air shipments of arms to Syria.

American officials said Patriot missiles and F-16s will be kept in Jordan to reassure an important ally that has aligned itself with the U.S.

The CIA has been training rebels in Jordan and weapons that are to be sent to the opposition by the United States are expected to be funneled through Jordan, both of which might heightened the risk of Syrian retaliation.

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, all but ruled out the imposition of a no-fly zone in a conference call on Thursday, saying that the White House was not eager to take on such an open-ended commitment.

But the Patriots and F-16s would have some utility if the United States ever decided to support the establishment of a buffer zone between Syria and Jordan.

The Obama administration is also adding to the diplomatic pressure on the Assad government. Kerry, in a phone conversation on Saturday with Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called on Iraq “to take every possible measure to help end the military resupply of the Assad regime” and thus increase pressure for a political settlement, according to a statement released by the State Department.

But Kerry’s Russian counterpart pushed back, condemning the White House decision to send arms to the Syrian opposition.

Russia has long supported the Assad government politically and by sending arms. A major concern of the Russians is that American accusations of chemical weapons use will become a rationale for greater American and Western involvement.

Toward that end, Russia has also supported the Assad government’s refusal to agree to wide-ranging international inspections of potential chemical weapons use.

At a news conference in Moscow, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, asserted that the use of chemical arms by the Syrian government made no sense, given the current state of the conflict. “The regime has not been driven into a corner now,” Lavrov said. “What sense does it make for the regime to use chemical weapons, especially in such small quantities, only to expose itself?”

The White House referred questions on Lavrov’s charges of faulty intelligence to the director of national intelligence’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Britain and France have also said there is convincing evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons.

Egypt’s severing of relations with Syria also adds pressure on Assad. Morsi’s comments on Saturday amounted to a considerable hardening of his stance, after previously insisting on a diplomatic solution to the Syrian conflict and positioning himself as an interlocutor between Syrian allies like Iran and Assad’s regional opponents, including Saudi Arabia.

A senior adviser to the Egyptian presidency said Morsi had been swayed by what he said was the confirmation of chemical weapons use by the United States and other countries, as well as the reversal of opposition gains in Syria after the intervention by Hezbollah.

Speaking at a rally of his Islamist supporters in a Cairo stadium on Saturday, Morsi said that at the hands of Assad’s forces, Syrians were subject to “extermination” and “systematic ethnic cleansing sponsored by regional and international forces.”

He sharply criticized Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group whose fighters have joined the Syrian conflict on Assad’s behalf, saying the group “must leave Syria” and called for the imposition of a no-fly zone.

“This is serious,” Morsi said, to loud cheers.

Protesters rally Saturday outside the U.S. Embassy in central London to oppose Western intervention in Syria.

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